A spoiled young madwoman orchestrates a bizarre tragedy in 1997's The House of Yes. Parker Posey shines as the madwoman, Jackie O, and the film's clever dialogue from the stage play by Wendy MacLeod is always sparkling and devious.
Jackie is named after JFK's wife. We see from the beginning that Posey's Jackie is obsessed with her. She dresses in the famous pink coat and pillbox hat at a party and decorates the outfit with ketchup and macaroni to imitate the gore from Kennedy's fatal wound. The innocent, guileless outsider to the family, Lesly (Tori Spelling), states the obvious--it's not funny. The movie could be read as a referendum on ironic humour. Posey's Jackie imitating Jackie Onassis is so terrible it's funny, but the funny goes right back to sad as the movie progresses.
It's linked to her incestuous obsession with her twin brother, Marty (Josh Hamilton). Their mother, played by Geneveive Bujold, casually mentions to Lesly that when the twins emerged from the womb, Jackie was already holding Marty's penis. And we see the attraction is far from one-sided in a memorable scene where they play piano together and swap corny wordplay jokes like a double act.
Parker Posey doesn't do a very good impression of JFK's wife but she's pleasantly reminiscent of a young Katharine Hepburn--brittle, quick, vain, and clever. She's a delight.
The House of Yes is available on The Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
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